Her face was glorified. She sang to that silent one, and to the world that had been hers. In a dream she sang on, as the mother and her boy were taken from her sight, sang on while the people silently departed. "Somewhere, somewhere," she sang,
"Beautiful isle of Somewhere,
Isle of the true, where we live anew,
Beautiful isle of Somewhere."
Her voice broke as uncontrollable sobs rent her slender body, and she sank against the shoulder of her father and followed Bill from the church. Half-a-dozen kindly hands were carrying Jap outside.
The long line of carriages had already started on its way to the little plot of ground where two fern-lined graves awaited the loved ones of Ellis Hinton. The horses of the remaining carriage pawed the ground restlessly in the sharp November air.
"Better take him to his room in a hurry," Dr. Hall commanded. "The boy has been through too much. I was afraid of this."
"You can't take him to that dreary office," Isabel pleaded. "Papa, tell Dr. Hall what to do."
And, as always, she had her way. In the sunny south room above the library, with the shadows of the stark elms doing grotesque dances on the window panes, with Isabel and her mother hovering in tender solicitude over him, Jap Herron tossed for weeks in the delirium of fever, calling always for Flossy.
CHAPTER XIX
"Mr. Bowers wants to talk to you," Isabel said, smoothing Jap's limp hair from his haggard face. "He has been here every day for a week, and Mamma wouldn't hear to his bothering you, especially as you had concluded that you must talk to Bill about the office."